Dorothy Bendel
Murmuration
Starlings move across the sky in black
clouds, a massive organism made of tiny heartbeats. A girl walks
away from her home when backs are turned, until she
no longer recognizes the houses set on manicured lawns, until a surge of
cold air pricks the plumage at the nape of her neck. Some starlings migrate
long distances, some stick close to familiar lands to roost. The girl watches
starlings fly closer, then farther, and thinks of the vacuum that terrified
her when she was little, how it moved but went nowhere, yet devoured
everything in its path. The girl recalls how she dreamed of vacuuming
up her father, his body flattening and elongating the closer she moved
toward him, the terrible contraption roaring, until his entire body
disappeared under the machine's rectangular head. She remembers
how, in his last moment, she heard a soft peep—like an accidentally stepped-on
mouse—echo through the vast living room, clean. Starlings, to the girl, seem
brave because they are one but not alone. The girl l
Murmuration
Starlings move across the sky in black
clouds, a massive organism made of tiny heartbeats. A girl walks
away from her home when backs are turned, until she
no longer recognizes the houses set on manicured lawns, until a surge of
cold air pricks the plumage at the nape of her neck. Some starlings migrate
long distances, some stick close to familiar lands to roost. The girl watches
starlings fly closer, then farther, and thinks of the vacuum that terrified
her when she was little, how it moved but went nowhere, yet devoured
everything in its path. The girl recalls how she dreamed of vacuuming
up her father, his body flattening and elongating the closer she moved
toward him, the terrible contraption roaring, until his entire body
disappeared under the machine's rectangular head. She remembers
how, in his last moment, she heard a soft peep—like an accidentally stepped-on
mouse—echo through the vast living room, clean. Starlings, to the girl, seem
brave because they are one but not alone. The girl l